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drank it. The water now began to increase pretty fast so that I was glad to enlarge my reservoir, insomuch that, on the 4th or 5th day, I had a sufficient supply; and this water was certainly the preservation of my life.
At the bottom of the pit there were great quantities of reptiles, such as frogs, toads, large black snails, or slugs, &c. These noxious creatures would frequently crawl about and often got into my reservoir; nevertheless, I thought it the sweetest water I had ever tasted and, at this distance of time, the remembrance of it is so sweet, that were it now possible to obtain any of it, I am sure I could swallow it with avidity. I have frequently taken both, frogs and toads cut of my neck, where, I suppose, they took shelter while I slept. The toads I always destroyed, but the frogs I carefully preserved, as I did not know but I might be under the necessity of eating them, which I should not have scrupled to have done, had I been very hungry.
Saturday, the 6th, there fell but little rain and I had the satisfaction to hear the voices of some boys in the wood. Immediately I called out with all my might, but it was all in vain, tho' I afterwards learned that they actually heard me; but, being prepossessed with an idle story of a wild man being in the wood, they ran away affrighted.
Sunday, the 17th, was my birthday, when I completed my 41st year; and I think it was the next day that some of my acquaintances have accidentally heard that I had gone the way
